Concert - 1976 (Published March 6, 2022)

 

 Concert - 1976

It's Washington's Birthday weekend.   My friends Alan and Martha are up from Los Angeles. The plan is to go to Lake Tahoe and to see a concert at the Sahara Tahoe on Sunday night.  We leave on Sunday morning arriving at South Shore at around noon.  There are literally no rooms at any hotel on the South Shore near Stateline.  We retrace our drive back to “The Y”, where Highway 50 meets Highway 89.  We turn right on Highway 89 heading towards the North Shore.  Surely this isolated stretch away from Stateline will have a motel with a room.  No rooms to be had.  We’re now at Tahoe City and continue onto Highway 28 towards Kings Beach.  Still no rooms.  We cross into Nevada and the road now turns South along the east shore of the lake.  Still no rooms.  At nearly dark we have finished the loop and are now back at Stateline on the south shore, where we started some four hours before. 

Alan is more than angry.  He points out that we made the reservation for the show a couple months prior and that I should have made hotel reservations.  Quite frankly, I would not never expect the Lake to be this crowded and I never assumed it was my responsibility to make that hotel reservation.  But to be frank, it is in my nature to procrastinate, and procrastinate I did.  If you remember the Northern California weather in 1976, you’ll remember it as the 1976-1977 drought.  So if there’s no snow, there’s no traveler’s to Lake Tahoe – boy, was I wrong.  As it was, it was an extremely cold night and there was a bit of precipitation.

We go into the casino to check it out.  There are two shows and we have reservations for the late show that starts at around 10 pm and ends at around midnight.  A long discussion pursues as to us staying and seeing the show or returning to Sacramento.  I point out it is “only” two hours back to town so if we stay, we’ll be home by 2 am, not too late, at least for us under-thirty types.  We decide to stay for the show.  I do not remember what we did for the two or three hours to fill in the time, but we do wait.  Alan is still steaming from the day’s events.  I do not remember how Martha was reacting but am thinking she was also mad, but it must not be as mad as Alan, or I would remember.  I remember that at some point we go into the bathrooms and change into more suitable attire. 

We get seated.  Tables are in long rows coming out from the stage.  We give the person seating us a tip and get seated to the right of the center stage but only a few people back from the stage.  I remember being across from Alan.   First up, Johnny Rivers.  To be honest, I was not even familiar with Johnny Rivers.  We had come to hear the Fifth Dimension and I viewed Rivers as the warm-up act.  Guess I missed knowing of his hits until he began to sing, and then I recognized many of them.  The audience went wild, and he was called back for several numbers by the audience’s standing ovations.  We liked what he sang but were worried it would cut into the Fifth Dimensions performance.  It was already well after 11 pm and still no Fifth Dimension. 

The Fifth Dimension was all we had asked for and more.  They end their show with “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine”.   People are pulled out of the audience at the end of the song.  One is Alan.  Most people on stage have their hands raised and are swaying back and forth to the music.  Some are dancing.  All at once Alan starts doing front and backflips on stage.  Sort of the dancing you would expect from a professional dancer on a Broadway stage.  People next to me are sure he’s “a plant”, a planned part of the show.  Marilyn McCoo, at some point, stops singing as she is in such bewilderment of Alan who is literally stealing the show.  After the song ends, Alan returns to his seat and is ecstatic, let’s say… “Up and Away”.  People at our table are still in disbelief.   

We pay.  I think the expectation is that there be no change but we’re waiting for our change as we were not planning to leave a 40% tip or something.  It takes forever and ever.  The theater has almost cleared out before someone comes over to the table.  We again ask for the change, and someone reluctantly brings it.     By now, we are literally the only people in this large room.    We leave. It is now well after midnight, and we have a long drive ahead.  As we walk down this very long hallway back into the casino, Alan is taped on the back by no other than one of the Fifth Dimension.  They tell him how wonderful he was and ask if we would like to go to an after-show party.  Sure, why not.  They wanted us to join them in the limo, but I was reluctant.  I asked if they would wait and that I would follow them in the car.  I ran at full speed.  It was we below zero and my car would not make it up the ramp by the front door.  I went around through a back exit, around the block, and then back to the front entrance, the car almost spinning out on the way. 

We followed them east a couple miles and then turned left toward the lake.  We ended up at this mansion on the water.   I remember the first thing Alan asked is where he could change clothes.  He apparently had just the right dress for the party.  As I recall, I did not.  The food and drink were magnificent.  Johnny Cash had been performing at Harrah’s across the street and joined the party soon after we got there.  I was pretty much in a daze by the whole affair.  I remember there were lots of “groupies”, as I would call them.  People that followed celebrities around were invited to parties like this one.   I ended up sitting and talking to Robert Townson, the large base singer with the group.  He was not much of a partyer,  at least that night  In fact, he confided how much he disliked these late-night events.  At some point of the night, there was some impromptu singing, the joke-telling from a comedian, I forget whom, that was performing at one of the casinos, and more dancing with Alan leading the charge. 

4 am came and the party was breaking up.  Time to drive home.  Wait, someone declares.  There is a suite waiting for you at the Sahara.  We woke at about noon by a knock at the door.  Room service, breakfast is served.  Alan did not complain at all about my failure to get a room on the way back to Sacramento, or ever again.